In this small book Garman gives a useful short overview of the cult of the Matronae in the Rhineland, in particular in what was the Ubian territory in the province of Germania Inferior. This cult of three women flourished from the first to fourth century. Although numerous inscriptions (c. 1,000 dedications in total, including fragments), some excavated sanctuaries and plenty of clay figures are known, there is no contemporary literary evidence. Thus, every theory about the cult depends on archaeological and epigraphic evidence. Several problems arise when considering the background of their worship: who were the people who dedicated the offerings? Were they from the Germanic tribe of the Ubii, or were they Celtic or Roman? And what does ‘Roman’ really mean in this context? The iconography seems to be one in which the pre-Roman religious roots are represented in a Roman way through the medium of stone, though in practice we can only really see the Roman appearance on the altars. One ‘advantage’ of this lack of sources is that we do not have to take Roman political attitudes into account. Instead, for G., the keywords of this cultural exchange are ‘bias’ and ‘ethnic interaction’.
In the first chapter G. gives a brief history of the Rhineland under Roman rule and the archaeological evidence for settlement, but he overemphasizes the ‘area of villas used for pasture’, which truly applies only to the north of the Rhineland; in the south there was a preponderance of agricultural use. In ch. 2 he gives a concise, but good account of the main academic thinking on these ‘female ancestral spirits’ and ‘the problem of romanisation in the context of the Matronae’. G. writes first about the iconography and how to interpret the symbols, then moves on to discuss the names of the dedicants. In ch. 3 he tries to answer the interesting question as to why the Romans worshipped these ‘simple barbarian goddesses’, concluding that they did so by ‘adding’ them to their known gods, in line with the interpretatio Romana as defined by Tacitus (Germania 43). Then, G. explains that, for several scholars, the Matres were not identical with Matronae.
In discussing what these three women represented, it is suggested that they provided common wealth and strong fertility, and displayed chthonic connections based upon the iconography of the snake and raven, besides potentially also being associated with Iuno. G.’s summary does not discuss any new points of view and it seems evident that he did not see the stones himself. Instead, he forms his conclusions from mere iconography: ‘the Matronae preside over abundance, wealth, and fertility … and some influence over the course of the events’. He thus remains vague, because nobody can say with certainty what is really ‘true’. G. also argues that, since the Matronae are dressed in Ubian fashion, more than likely they originated from the Ubii, but the evidence for this is very thin; it seems more plausible that the Ubii adopted a Celtic cult, which already existed in the area, as there are other finds of stone altars of the Matronae from Celtic lands, especially in northern Italy.
Ch. 4 arranges the Matronae cult historically. G. speaks about the location of sanctuaries, though ‘only seven of them have been confirmed’, at the sites of Nettersheim, Zingsheim, Pesch, Nideggen-Abenden and Eschweiler-Fronhoven, which were ‘lying in lines to mark the border of Ubian territory’. He also includes Bonn and Morken-Harff, the sites of which have yet to be found! If he accepts the latter, he should also have included some other temples known from aerial photographs, such as Mariaweiler-Hoven (fragments, but no inscriptions) and Bornheim-Swisterberg, though he is surely correct in not including gathering places where no temple-site is known, as for example at Wachtberg-Berkum south of Bonn. Even so, his hypothesis of a line of temples in Ubian territory (even without discussing whether Abenden belongs to it) can only remain fragmentary, as it is based on present knowledge. He does not, for instance, consider the possibility that the absence of stone altars in the northern Rhineland may depend on the fact that people in the Middle Ages reused them for other purposes. This might explain why only one temple to the Matronae is known in the latter area at Colonia Ulpia Traiana (Xanten). Only after taking all this into account might it be possible to discuss ‘temple landscapes’. G. also discusses the names of the Matronae, in the process advancing a list of possible meanings for the epithets, but without mentioning other solutions.
Ch. 5 covers the inscriptions and deals with the problem of distinguishing ethnic origin, as they are not ethnically pure. Many altars were dedicated by military men as a result of their dangerous lives; few were set up by women, perhaps because they were seen as too expensive. Ch. 6 deals with post-classical references to the Matronae, reflecting the fact that the cult is still well-known in the fairytales of the Eifel, where the ‘Drei Marien’ feature as three white women or three sisters, Fides, Spes and Caritas. Clearly many of the human aspects of the Matronae have been assimilated to the population. Ch. 7 provides a short account of the interpretation of the character of the Matronae, their cult and their worshippers, though their full meaning has still to be fully appreciated. Indeed it is true, but hardly novel, to say that ‘[the Roman Rhineland] was a place where Celtic, Germanic and Roman people came together and as a result a very unique and dynamic shared culture was created’ (86).
The appendix lists known inscriptions of the Matronae in the Rhineland, but its use is likely to be limited as a catalogue that will include a number of previously unpublished inscriptions is presently under production in Bonn/Germany.
